Quote: TK-069 said: So E.E. Smith was before Frank Herbert?
Oh, fuck yeah. His first series, Skylark of Space, which consists of four books, began in the late 1920's.
In these books, a professor discovers the secret of converting mass directly into energy, and immediately sets about designing a space-drive based on this principle. Half-way through the story he's on the other side of the galaxy and getting sucked into a dark star (black hole, before that term was coined). By the end of the book, he comes home in a spaceship over half the size of the original, armed to the teeth with alien weapons and protected by "dazzling screens of pure force" which can bend, refract, and even absorb electromagnetic energy. This was back in 1928 or 1929, I believe.
The "Skylark" series began space opera. The "Lensman" saga, however, defined it.
Robert Heinlein was a good friend of E. E. Smith's, and Heinlein even had one of his hero's accidently stumble into Smith's Lensman universe in one of his short stories. Heinlein has stated on more than one occasion that it was Smith's stories that partly inspired him to write sci-fi.
J. Michael Strazynski (sp?) worships Smith almost as much as me. In the forward of each book (the latest editions, from Old Earth Books), there are quotes from notable sci-fi authors like JMS, Asimov, David Weber, Frank Herbert, all heaping massive amounts of praise onto Smith. JMS has also stated Babylon 5 is the closest he could ever get to even TRYING to re-create what Smith did w/ the Lensman saga.
Herbert's use of force fields is based on the rules laid down by Smith: fast-moving objects, such as bullets and particles traveling at lightspeed, cannot pass thru a force field; on the other hand, something that moves relatively slow, such as a sword blade, knife, or ax, could penetrate a field, if the incoming strength and aim was just right.
Believe me, every contraption and contrivance of modern-day science fiction, from ray-guns, to Death Stars, on down to flight-belts and "speeders", came from Smith.
